


Falling in Love is Easy

by Skaty_not_Stoppy



Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: F/M, How Do I Tag, I call other people out on that wtf, I'm Sorry I Guess, Might get some things wrong, but like i did this instead of homework so, i don't know any popular heathers tags so I guess that's it, i hate myself and this story, i need to do something with this, is it bare or bear, mama just killed a man, martha is amazing and she doesn't get enough love, ram still sucks, song: kindergarten boyfriend, this is so weird considering what else i've posted, this probably sucks but like bare with me, veronica is badass/ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 10:52:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaty_not_Stoppy/pseuds/Skaty_not_Stoppy
Summary: ... It's falling out of it that's hard."The blood red scab he hands her, the soft freckles on his nose and the way that his blond hair shifts when he runs towards her. She holds them in her heart, repeats these little details so often that before she knows it she's halfway to believing that they belong to her."I kinda just wanted to try and take a deeper look at how Martha never gave up on Ram. Hopefully someone enjoys it.





	Falling in Love is Easy

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to Heathers, and some things have been happening on the personal side, and it kinda just annoyed me that everyone sorta just accepts that Martha was in love with Ram for 12 years? 12 years is such a long time (especially when you're growing up), there must've been some inner conflict there. Probably.

It starts in kindergarten. Starts with that warm feeling in her chest. Of being wanted. Of being useful. She's too young, much too young to know what it is, but she knows that it's there. She knows that no one has ever had time for her before, little dumb Martha Dumptruck. But now suddenly there's a boy who's first instinct is to look at her during group work. To sit next to her, to give her some of his snack.

No one's ever looked at her before.

In her memory this goes down as something significant. Something that can never be repeated. The blood red scab he hands her, the soft freckles on his nose and the way that his blond hair shifts when he runs towards her. She holds them in her heart, repeats these little details so often that before she knows it she's halfway to believing that they belong to her.

And then first grade comes.

Her mother had yelled at her that morning. Thrown around her clothing, her favourite pink shirt that had a horse with wings flying across the front, had screamed things that would hurt for Martha to remember for the rest of her life. The words tasted like beer on her mother's breath. They smelled like being slapped, felt like something wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong with her.

She wished that she was better. Nicer. _Kinder_. Her mother just needed kindness. Her father had explained that to her. Had knelt down and hugged her and begged her to just try and be kind.

When she got to school she was crying. It was an ugly cry, with snot all over the front of her. So violent that her eyes seem to be swollen closed. She doesn't want anyone to see her. They'll just see something wrong, wrong, wrong, and she doesn't want that. But Ram won't think that. Ram has never thought that, has never pushed away or called her Dumptruck.

He did that day. She tried to call him over, so that no one else would see her, but he wouldn't let her. He wanted to play Pokemon with his friends. He was annoyed, excited.  
Why stand around watching her cry when he could do something fun, exciting? All she would do was bring him down and he felt so happy that day, light as a kite. His mom had gotten him some new cards and Kurt would be so impressed-

But she kept asking, kept calling. She wouldn't stop.

He got annoyed. Of course he did. She was probably annoying, so sad and hurt and less than he was. It was first grade and his life was already too big for someone like her to even be allowed a corner.

"Stop following me around!"

"Ra-"

"Heather was right, you are so annoying, Martha Dumptruck."

***

They didn't talk after that. He slipped away from her, choosing to sit across class with Kurt and crowing out "Martha Dumptruck, Martha Dumptruck" whenever she got too close.

Still, sometimes the details she used to repeat over and over in her head about him would pop up. Unexpectedly. When he loudly complains about his mom getting him Charizard shirt (his favourite is Squirtle) or when he falls asleep in class. He makes the same tiny puff snores that he always has.

And for a while, watching for traces of the boy-who-was-hers (she always smushes those words together in her head when she thinks them, afraid that she'll get in trouble) is enough.

***

Martha thinks about giving up on him when she's close to the end of grade nine. She's been in high school almost a year, and she thinks she's got a hang on it. Her weeknights include homework, her Fridays watching The Princess Bride with Veronica (again), her Saturdays visiting her mom for the hour she's allowed (not that her mom notices, she spends most of that time asleep on the table).

She's ended up in a group project with Ram and Kurt, sitting in her basement afterschool trying to goddamn finish it. Kurt's been asleep on the desk for an hour, Veronica's threatening violence if they ditch before she gets back from the dentist, and Ram's taking a lot of sips from the waterbottle that smells a little too much like vodka and smiling a little too much at Veronica.

It's all too much, and if Veronica wasn't demanding that Kurtram actually earn their grade for once - and if Veronica didn't still have enough height on them to make her words have weight - Martha would have preferred just figuring out what the hell and incidence ray was herself.

The door slams shut as Veronica vacated the premises (" _So lame, my parents insisted. Back in an hour_ "). Martha could feel her headache multiply instantly. She didn't want to be there, she didn't want to be here with Kurtram (when did their names start to blur together?).

She especially doesn't want to hear what Ram says next.

"Man, if she wasn't so _Veronica_ , I'd totally hit that. Can you imagine anything more ri-"

For a second she felt out of place, her mind totally blurring out whatever it is that Ram says next, why his smile hitches just a little bit higher on one side. Because she knows that smile, she memorized that smile, she smiles when that smile smiles. Smile. Smile. Smile.

How could he smile his smile, her smile, and then say something like that about Veronica?

She didn't know the boy sitting in front of her. He looked like Ram but he wasn't her Ram.

There was a bang, and it echoed through her brain. She found Ram, his face just a few inches from hers, his face red and twisted up.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" He demanded. His voice was angry, savage. Nothing like that voice from kindergarten. Gone, gone, gone, he was gone.

"I said," he repeats, getting closer and redder, "why are you looking at me like that." There's no question in it this time, only madness.

"Answer me!" He screamed. Beside him, Kurt didn't even stir. There was some spittle on Kurt's lips that slowly made its way down his chin.

"I don't need you Mar-", she never would have pegged ("-tha Dumptr-") Kurt as the kind to drool in his sleep. ("I don't ne-"), she had never really considered it before, but she probably would have assumed him to be a ("-ed you.")

The slap that lands on her cheek barely stings. No hurt, just shock. And suddenly she's staring at Ram, who's way too close and who's crying. Crying. Ram's crying. He's whispering something, too soft for her to hear. And he's crying.

She reaches her hand out to him, a wave of empathy rushing over her, but he draws back and rests his head against the table. She waits, unsure of what to do. The only sound is him sobbing, the rain against the window, her dad distantly yelling at the football game.

Then sobbing stops after a few minutes, Ram's face still in his elbow. And she waits. And waits. And waits. She can't stop staring at him, wondering what's going on in his head. She waits and she stares, she stares and she waits until she can't take it anymore and she reaches across the table and shakes his shoulder...

And his head shifted over, his eyes closed, dead to the world. The tears were still on his face.

They had shared a mat once in kindergarten. She had watched him sleep, trying desperately to fix into her memory exactly how he had looked.

It had hurt him to hit her, hurt him to see her so disgusted. He was still there, wasn't he? Her Ram, still there. Still there. Maybe he just needed a little kindness to be brought out, but he still cared.

Her Ram.

She just had to be patient and kind, wait for him to come back to her.

And so she got to work on the project. She didn't even notice that across the table, there was a left-over tear on Ram's face that had just passed his lips, that slowly made its way down his chin...

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully people like this!


End file.
